“The development of weaponry based on new physics principles; direct-energy weapons, geophysical weapons, wave-energy weapons, genetic weapons, psychotronic weapons, etc., is part of the state arms procurement program for 2011-2020,”

__________________
Know your idols: Who said "Hitler killed five million Jews. It is the greatest crime of our time. But the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher's knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs.". (Solution: "Mahatma" Ghandi)

"Humans are storytellers. These stories then can become our reality. Only when we loose ourselves in the stories they have the power to control us. Our culture got lost in the wrong story, a story of death and defeat, of opression and control, of separation and competition. We need a new story!"

The weapons from the Cold war are still there. The new things just add a little bit to the threat. Actually they add a lot because the Cold war was about MAD (mutually assured destruction), so no one dared to really use this. But a nuclear powered drone here, a little genetically engineered virus there ... who will respond with atomic bombs to that little thing....

__________________
Know your idols: Who said "Hitler killed five million Jews. It is the greatest crime of our time. But the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher's knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs.". (Solution: "Mahatma" Ghandi)

"Humans are storytellers. These stories then can become our reality. Only when we loose ourselves in the stories they have the power to control us. Our culture got lost in the wrong story, a story of death and defeat, of opression and control, of separation and competition. We need a new story!"

"The primary goal of the DARPA Robotics Challenge program is to develop ground robotic capabilities to execute complex tasks in dangerous, degraded, human-engineered (vice natural) environments. The program will focus on robots that can use available human tools, ranging from hand tools to vehicles. The program aims to advance the key robotic technologies of supervised autonomy, mounted mobility, dismounted mobility, dexterity, strength, and platform endurance."

or this:

"In the DARPA Robotics Challenge, robots will compete with each other performing disaster response operations in representative scenarios that will likely include the following sequence of events:
1. Drive a utility vehicle at the site.
2. Travel dismounted across rubble.
3. Remove debris blocking an entryway.
4. Open a door and enter a building.
5. Climb an industrial ladder and traverse an industrial walkway.
6. Use a tool to break through a concrete panel.
7. Locate and close a valve near a leaking pipe.
8. Replace a component such as a cooling pump.
These are representative tasks and will likely be updated based on detailed future planning that will take into account safety, cost, performance, operational capabilities and needs.
Figure 1 illustrates Event 6 (the robot on the right-hand side using a power tool) and Event 7 (the robot on the left-hand side turning a valve). The form of these robots is for illustration only; while the robot must be compatible with human operators, environments and tools, there is not a requirement that it have a humanoid form."

You can see the illustration mentioned in the DARPA announcement (PDF file) on page 6... of course, they're not going to build anything humanoid, resembling certain James Cameron movie visions, do they???

The weapons from the Cold war are still there. The new things just add a little bit to the threat. Actually they add a lot because the Cold war was about MAD (mutually assured destruction), so no one dared to really use this. But a nuclear powered drone here, a little genetically engineered virus there ... who will respond with atomic bombs to that little thing....

Everyone? That's the point: threaten the stability of Russia or the US (or any other nuclear power) by any means and you get blown off the map. Nukes aren't only good against nukes; nukes are good against everything.

The weapons from the Cold war are still there. The new things just add a little bit to the threat. Actually they add a lot because the Cold war was about MAD (mutually assured destruction), so no one dared to really use this. But a nuclear powered drone here, a little genetically engineered virus there ... who will respond with atomic bombs to that little thing....

With the possible exception of Iran (whio are all religious nutcases), nobody is stupid enough to precipitate a conflict that will get themselves wiped out.

Did you adress me with the slippery slope thingy? Or Clarke? Because what I said was that there will NOT be a nuclear retaliation if someone uses one of these new weapons, and that this is sort of a bad thing compared to nukes. See, if a country attacks another one with something really devastating that is traceable to them, like a rocket with a nuclear warhead on it, as it was the common threat in the cold war, it risks nuclear counterstrikes that are devastating. But with more powerful "conventional" weapons, one can have wars. Like the US has with the weaponry they used in Iraq and Afghanistan. And the other party will not reply with something like nukes. Some of these weapons sound even like they can be made non-traceable (e.g. biological weapons), which would result in no clear opponent to attack.
More advanced weapons are never really a good idea. Never.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Advent

Well, they had to start building more weapons eventually. No big deal, they'll just kill each other in different ways.

If they would just "kill each other", I could not care less. But weapons kill and usually they dont really care about whom they kill. In modern warfare, the civilian casualties are considerable...

__________________
Know your idols: Who said "Hitler killed five million Jews. It is the greatest crime of our time. But the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher's knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs.". (Solution: "Mahatma" Ghandi)

"Humans are storytellers. These stories then can become our reality. Only when we loose ourselves in the stories they have the power to control us. Our culture got lost in the wrong story, a story of death and defeat, of opression and control, of separation and competition. We need a new story!"

Honestly, not even North Korea. They had a single failed test which bankrupted them along with several failed ICBM tests, and they have what they need for posturing purposes; now they've got their hands full with other problems anyway.

Quote:

Originally Posted by auroraglacialis

Did you adress me with the slippery slope thingy? Or Clarke? Because what I said was that there will NOT be a nuclear retaliation if someone uses one of these new weapons, and that this is sort of a bad thing compared to nukes.

Really?

Quote:

who will respond with atomic bombs to that little thing....

Quote:

Like the US has with the weaponry they used in Iraq and Afghanistan.

That stuff has existed since the cold war, sorry to correct you.

Quote:

Some of these weapons sound even like they can be made non-traceable (e.g. biological weapons), which would result in no clear opponent to attack.

The slippery slope fallacy really is fun, isn't it?

Quote:

More advanced weapons are never really a good idea. Never.

I disagree. When countries like Iran, North Korea, China, Egypt, Pakistan or Syria exist, people need a deterrent. There was no deterrent in WW1 or WW2, and the result was an actual war.

Quote:

If they would just "kill each other", I could not care less. But weapons kill and usually they dont really care about whom they kill. In modern warfare, the civilian casualties are considerable...

If there was no reason for humans to have wars, I'd be very happy, but as long as there are 7 billion people on one planet (and no post-scarcity society), as long as there are territorial disputes, fuel scarcities, and ideologies such as communism or various religions, there will always be problems.

"Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy **** we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off." - Tyler Durden